Who Is Next?

Posted on 20/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe

While watching the riots around the country last week I wondered how long it would be before the creeps began to pick on George Washington. Well, yesterday I saw an article that showed poor bronze George laying laying face down wondering what the hell happened. I am wondering the same thing. There is nothing that divides a country more then civil strife. I often declare myself a bigot, and a racist, but I live with black neighbors as well as brown and yellow. These people are fine people. All they want is to live in peace, raise their families and to have a good life, they are okay, or at least they appear to be. Frankfort is a magnet for minority families because of the fine reputation of our schools. They come here to give their kids the same chance as I gave mine. They don’t want their kids hooked on drugs, nor recruited into gangs. Yet, Frankfort has both of these problems within the boundaries. My own grand daughters told me exactly where they could go within the school to get drugs. It was a different place for different desires. I read the police blotter in the locals and the number one reason for being pulled over is to examine for drugs. Lately there has been an explosion of burgled cars and homes. I can only reason that these thieves are feeding habits. The number one house that gets robbed is one with doors unlocked, the same for cars. Stolen cars are easy pickings when the owners leave them unlocked with the keys in the console.

What we haven’t seen yet in our town is unpeaceful protesting, rioting, and looting. These activities seem to be organized by political groups mostly leftist or communist for the purpose of creating division between peoples. These are ruthless criminal types that will betray their country for money. Many are highly educated and brainwashed into leftist thinking that they have it bad. Never do these people listen to logic nor understand statistics about how more black lives are lost within their own community perpetrated by blacks. Black lives don’t really matter if it is a black killing a black.

Blacks are progressing in this country. Although because I, a white man has said it they will disagree. There have been myriads of laws passed dictating that blacks are equal to whites, trillions of dollars have been spent to make their lives better, and it has done so, but they don’t think it is enough, they want reparation too. This rioting and protesting will only end when the entire country is communist, poor, and starving. In other words, never. We will never succumb to communism peacefully.

This week I heard the term “Juneteenth” for the first time. The word is completely strange to me, but since that first time it is a ll I’ve heard. Evidently, it is a term used to commemorate freedom from slavery. Southern states have been celebrating this day, but not in my half of the country. There is now a movement to make Juneteenth a National Holiday. I suppose the day will rival the National Holiday of July fourth with picnics and concerts on the National Mall, fireworks, parades, and time off from work.  Hell, if we celebrate more and more none of us will have any time to work for a living. Life will be more acceptable if we didn’t have to work. What an awful four letter word work is.

Filed under: Aging, Conservative, Education | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Day 49-SIP-Together We Stand, Divided We Fall

Posted on 05/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Throughout this day I have been getting ideas for what to write about and now that I am finally at the keyboard they are all gone, damned old age and dementia. When I opened the writer I realized that my titles with the number of days for the posts are out of sequence, and that is something to write about.

I first began this blog with a goal to promote the power of positive thinking. I finished my work career on a high note because I finally adopted positive thinking as a lifestyle. My life began as a negative human being. My parents were always saying no to my ideas, actions, or aspirations and it rubbed off.

Ungovernable: The Victorian Parent’s Guide to Raising Flawless Children, by Therese Oneill

My first positive move was to break away from my parent’s recommendation to be a barber, butcher, doctor, or lawyer. At least I considered the doctor route while recuperating from my polio, but before I left the hospital I had resigned that I was way too lazy to become a doctor. The prospect of eight years of school, internship, and residency convinced me not to even give it another thought. I chose to become an engineer. I didn’t even know what an engineer was, at least not one that didn’t drive a train, streetcar, or subway. Why? My older brother was in that curriculum and he liked it so I will also like it.

As a kid, I was always taking things apart and greasing wheels or making a push car to race with my friends. Making model airplanes was also a favorite hobby. I enrolled in the science program at a local Catholic High School, also against my parents wishes. There I began to learn what engineers do. Math, math, and more math, German, chemistry, physics were all new subjects to me. I was determined to succeed, but it was with great difficulty. When it came time to take the tests to determine what kind of career I would be good at, all I learned was that engineering was not it. I never learned what I should have headed for. I prevailed and to soften the blow with my parents and counselors when it came time to enroll in college I joined a curriculum that was liberal arts-engineering. The program required that I spend three years at the liberal arts college and then transfer to an approved engineering school for two years. After the fourth year I would receive a degree in Liberal Arts, and at the end of the fifth year I would receive a Bachelor of Science in Engineering.

I finally got the B.S.M.E. degree in 1961 and became an engineer with Danly Machine Company. How I came to Danly is another long story for this blog.

Throughout my early career I had some pretty critical bosses. If I had an idea that collided with his, or his superior’s direction it didn’t fly. In other words I had my parents all over again except at least now I was earning money while being told no. That negativity went on for at least fifteen years. Whenever someone came up with a great new idea I had been trained to see all the reasons why it wouldn’t work, and of course I could never make it work either. One day I was tutored while in a design review meeting with our CEO and his Chief Executive. The Ceo was famous for ideas, and I was only known for seeing the negative side first. Then, the Exec stepped in a looked me straight in the eye and very sternly said, “why don’t you look at what will make this idea work instead of what will make it not work?”

I left the meeting and on the way to my cubicle the giant idea light-bulb lit over my head. I got it!

Why am I bringing this up when this diary is mostly about COVID-19? I see President Trump using every principe of positive thinking in every decision he makes. He projects positivity, he sees the positive outcome, and he encourages others to see it with him. I have never heard him once give a reason why something cannot be done. I have heard him brainstorm out loud much to the chagrin of the press. They have a field picking apart his ideas and use them against him. I see his ideas and am reminded of working with my boss who had the very same habits.

The President never gives his team open ended directions. He gives them positive instructions to get a job done, and then directs them to get it done.

President Trump is wise enough to select people who are action oriented toward the achievement of goals. He lets them know what he sees as success and what his expectations are.

I see and hear positivity from this man everyday, and I know from my own experience that positivity works. Just imagine if we had a two party system that believed in the same philosophy. What great things would we accomplish in America? Instead we have a two party system that is adversarial, like two nations at war. What we should have are two parties that debate ideas about how to make America stronger, and better. If they worked this way the result is often a compromise that makes the country healthy and strong for all the people not just the people of one party. When we enter into congressional dialog today, we enter as lawyers do when they enter a court of law. Instead of solving a problem that makes things amenable to each side, we lock horns and fight to win. The outcome is one side wins, and the other loses; the result is a divided country.

We all know that there is nothing worse than division be it in family, at work or in government. Unison works, positivity works, I pray we finally put them together and Make America Great Again.

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Fifty-Fifty Split

Posted on 24/03/2019 by Grumpa Joe

The more I read arguments by various factions within our country the more convinced I am that Americans have lost the ability to compromise. This morning I opted to read the Freedom Fighter published by the NRA. Of course the opinion pieces all targeted why we should continue to own guns. My stance on that is they are right. I have owned a gun since age fourteen when my older brother, then in the army, gifted me with a Winchester .22 caliber rifle.

I had a lot of fun with that rifle, as did my family. Whenever we had a family gathering at my parent’s farm we used the rifle in a competition. It was all in fun, and my brother, brother-in-law, and I taught our kids the rules of gun safety. I am a firm believer in gun ownership, and the Second Amendment. I don’t think my pea shooter will go far against an army destined to put me down when I rebel against a tyrannical government, but I will die fighting for my rights.

Reading the arguments for and against gun ownership caused me to think of the splits in out country. All of us has something we believe in and we are all right. None of us believes the other guy is correct. None of us believes the other guy will compromise on any of our rights. The rights of people who believe in guns is as strong as the right of the person who believes no one should own a gun. There are other divides among us, like the current head to head clash between Christians and Muslims. Both groups believe there is but one God, but both believe their God is the right one, even though God is the same Being. Both groups believe their belief is the only one. Another major split is in our beliefs of government systems. Liberals want to be controlled by government while Conservatives believe in very limited government, and the arguments go one, but there is no compromise. The worst split is between those who believe in the rule of law and those who believe they should ignore any law that they think is stupid, like borders, and illegal immigration.

I truly believe that these people are all right. Not all of us are bad, but our belief systems collide. What then, is the answer?

The US Constitution is the controlling doctrine. It is the one compelling set of truths that has the power to neutralize all the dividing factions among us. Except of course those who don’t think the Constitution has any meaning. The result is that we will be fighting against each other endlessly. Hopefully, the country will hold together while we sort things out.

When President Obama took office in 2008, and all the liberal liberals appeared from nowhere I predicted the country would end the argument in civil war. We are having that civil war now. We are not shooting yet, but the arguments to take our guns away are a way to neutralize our ability to win the war.

 

Filed under: Conservative, family, Government, Society | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »